Betty Wright died on Sunday at the age of 66, a legendary soul singer whose career spanned over half a century. And even though she's remembered for hits like "Clean Up Woman," "Tonight Is The Night," "Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do," and "No Pain (No Gain)," I think her reputation as a vocalist, her incredible range and whistle register, and how much big stars looked to her for samples and for her production and backing vocals, in some ways transcended her catalog as a solo artist. She only ever got one plaque, a gold single for "Clean Up Woman," in her whole career, but she recorded a lot of great music, and I wanted to scratch the surface a little bit beyond the singles.

Betty Wright deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Cry Like A Baby
2. Watch Out Love
3. Circle Of Heartbreak
4. Don't Let It End This Way
5. Ain't No Sunshine
6. I'll Love You Forever Heart And Soul
7. Let Me Go Down
8. I Am Woman
9. If You Think You've Got Soul
10. A Sometime Kind Of Thing
11. Brick Grits
12. A Song For You (live)
13. Reggae The Night Away
14. Tropical Island with Bobby Caldwell
15. Miami Groove
16. Keep Love New
17. It's The Little Things
18. Why We Do (What We Do)
19. So Long, So Wrong with The Roots
20. Swan Song

Tracks 1, 2 and 3 from My First Time Around (1968)
Tracks 4, 5 and 6 from I Love The Way You Love (1972)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Hard To Stop (1973)
Tracks 10 and 11 from This Time For Real (1977)
Track 12 from Live (1978)
Track 13 from Wright Back At You (1983)
Track 14 from Sevens (1986)
Track 15 from Mother Wit (1988)
Track 16 from 4U2NJOY (1989)
Track 17 from B-Attitudes (1993)
Track 18 from Fit For A King (2001)
Track 19 from Betty Wright: The Movie (2011)
Track 20 from Living...Love...Lies (2014)

One unfortunate byproduct of Betty Wright not being a huge multiplatinum star is that a chunk of her catalog is out of print or unavailable on streaming services. Spotify only has 11 of her 17 studio albums, so there's unfortunately a lot I couldn't cover here, including half of her '70s albums (no Danger High Voltage, Explosion, or Betty Travelin' In The Wright Circle). Still, there's enough stuff around from each decade of her career that I felt like I could kind of cover each era and span the range of her output.

It's been pointed out how impressive it is that Wright recorded "Girls Can't Do What Guys Do" and the rest of her debut My First Time Around at the age of 14, an album where she sings stuff like "when I think about the good love you give me, I cry like a baby." But I think it's even more amazing that Wright wrote "Circle Of Heartbreak" by herself at 14 (and co-wrote "Watch Out Love"). Wright was a vocal prodigy from the beginning, but she definitely starts to really show off and become a virtuoso a few albums in. Some of my favorite songs that feature her whistle register are "Sometime Kind of Thing" and "Keep Love New." I can't believe "I Am Woman" was never released as a single, that should've been an anthem.

The bulk of Wright's albums consisted of original material written by herself and/or her producers and collaborators, which is pretty cool. A lot of soul albums from that era tend to be padded out with a lot of covers, but Wright's albums are pretty light on covers, outside of the Sonny & Cher hit "Just You" on her first album. And I really enjoy her take on "Ain't No Sunshine," particularly since she died just a few weeks after Bill Withers. Wright's first concert album, 1978's Live, featured renditions of some of her biggest hits, as well as a cover of the Leon Russell cut "A Song For You" that was a hit for Andy Williams, Ray Charles, and others.

Betty Wright's most famous singles were sampled on hits by big stars like Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Color Me Badd, and 2Pac. But crate-digging underground rappers have also sampled a lot of her album tracks: "Let Me Go Down" was sampled by Blu, "Watch Out Love" was sampled by Blueprint, "I'll Love You Forever Heart And Soul" was sampled by Tanya Morgan, "Don't Let It End This Way" was sampled by The Regiment, and "A Sometime Kind of Thing" was sampled by Sourface.

I like some of Wright's later boogie/quiet storm stuff from the '80s onwards, although Fit For A King has a song called "Pull Your Pants Up!!!" that's pretty ridiculous. In her later years, a lot of younger artists also sought out Betty Wright -- she produced Joss Stone's debut, and worked with a lot of rappers, most notably guesting on DJ Khaled songs with Kendrick Lamar and others. She appeared on the initial pressings of Lil Wayne's blockbuster Tha Carter III, but Cash Money didn't clear the Rolling Stones lyrics Wright sang on "Playing With Fire," so all currently available editions of the album have replaced that song with, um, "Pussy Monster." And The Roots backed her on 2011's Betty Wright: The Movie, which is definitely one of her late career triumphs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at 10:09 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.